


Finite

by devilsnowcandy



Category: Journey into Mystery
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, First Kiss, One Shot, POV Female Character, Short, Spoilers, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsnowcandy/pseuds/devilsnowcandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Spoilers for issue 641) Leah considers her existence, and Loki, before they take Hela to the Grail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finite

Leah considers several courses of action as they begin to make their long way back to where Hela awaits them. She could say sorry, she supposes, for leading Loki on – but she never did that, really. He was the one that decided they were friends. She did all she could to prevent him from growing attached to her, so it is really only his fault that he’s going to be upset.

She could… she could thank him, for his friendship. But why should she? Better to tell him off for his stupidity. She’d been perfectly content as Hela’s handmaiden, alone and happy to serve as she was meant to. She never cared to have a life of her own, to have any feeling or concerns beyond whatever benefitted her mistress. 

She always knew that her time was finite, bound to the speed of Hela’s recovery, but before Loki came along she had never thought to feel sorrow over its passing. She never thought of how she would stop existing, no longer have thought or feeling or awareness, and felt even the tiniest inkling of fear or sorrow.

She touches Loki’s arm and he halts. He’s been talking for the past several minutes, some nonstop obnoxious chattering that she simply hasn’t bothered to decipher the meaning of, but he goes silent now.

She thinks that he will grieve her. Everyone says that Loki is a liar and a trickster, false in everything, but she never knew that Loki. This Loki, she believes, loves her far more than she’s ever allowed herself to love him, with all the strength of a doomed optimist. 

For that, perhaps, she ought to be grateful. 

She cups his face in her hands and pulls her own close to his. Once, he showed her a moving picture story on his Pad of I, in which the main characters did this. Kissed. It was supposed to show the depth of feeling between them. His lips are cold, but so are hers, and it’s awkward and strange. She shuts her eyes so that he will, too, and eventually his hands find their way to the back of her head and her waist, respectively, and he even dares to press his tongue into her mouth.

Which is utterly idiotic and causes her to pull back immediately, and the sheepish grin he gives her doesn’t help matters at all, but she finds she’s not sorry she did it. He even flinches and pouts when she smacks him, just like nothing’s changed at all. She should hate him for making her feel this warm, aching happiness, this pointless longing to have more time, but she can’t quite manage it.

Gratitude, then, she decides as they lead Hela to the Holy Grail. 

And as she feels herself fade, she reaches for him.


End file.
